'Crossing Thresholds': Radical Notes in Women's Writings ... - JPCS

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Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and SocietiesISSN No. 1948-1845 (Print); 1948-1853 (Electronic)‗Introduction‘ introduce her to the reader as someone who is unfamiliar with the Indianpolitics but familiar with the names of the elite political bigwigs who rule the nation. Herstance as a writer who can ‗speak three languages, write in/Two, dream in one‘ shedslight on her polyglot ease tempered by her desire to be made free to write in a languageshe prefers. The politics behind language is rather irksome to her:Don‘t write in English, they said, English isNot your mother-tongue. Why not leaveMe alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,Every one of you? Why not let me speak inAny language I like? The language I speak,Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernessesAll mine, mine alone.It is half English, half Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,It is as human as I am human, don‘tYou see? It voices my joys, my longings, myHopes, and it is useful to me as cawingIs to crows or roaring to the lions, itIs human speech, the speech of the mind that isHere and not there, a mind that sees and hears andIs aware. Not the deaf, blind speechOf trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or theIncoherent mutterings of the blazingFuneral pyre.At a time (in the 60‘s) when writing in English was akin to accepting the ideologicalapparatus of empire and writing in vernacular was considered a political act of resistance,Kamala Das chose to write in English. She was ―an heir to two poetic traditions, that ofMalayalam whose roots go back into the ancient Tamil Sangam poetry and medievalfolklore, and that of Indian English poetry beginning with Henry Derozio or ToruDutt…‖ (K. Satchidanandan, ―Transcending the Body,‖ ―Introduction to Only the SoulKnows How to Sing, 9).‘Crossing thresholds: Radical notes in women’s writings from contemporary South Asia,’Madhu SinghJPCS Vol 2 No 4, December 201186
Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and SocietiesISSN No. 1948-1845 (Print); 1948-1853 (Electronic)From the explicit assertion of linguistic creativity, she moves on to the expression of hersexual identity as a child-woman imposed on her:When I asked for love, not knowing what else to askFor, he drew a youth of sixteen into theBedroom and closed the door, He did not beat meBut my sad woman-body felt so beaten.The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.I shrank pitifully.As a reaction to this male invasion of her body, she defies the normative dress codemeant for women which is a patriarchal strategy to contain women into a stereotypicalmould. Refusing to conform, she took to wearing shirts and her brother‘s trousers, cut herhair short and thus ignored her womanliness. But the society at large that is out to forcewomen into submission took charge:Dress in sarees, be girlBe wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,Be a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,Belong, cried the categorizers. Don‘t sitOn walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, betterStill, be Madhavikutty. It is time toChoose a name, a role. Don‘t play pretending games.Don‘t play at schizophrenia or be aNympho. Don‘t cry embarrassingly loud whenJilted in love …Trapped in a loveless marriage, she takes up a lover, much to the chagrin of the peoplearound her. This is her final act of defiance though tempered with heartbreaks, sorrows,loneliness and midnight bouts of alcoholism:I met a man, loved him. CallHim not by any name, he is every manWho wants. a woman, just as I am every‘Crossing thresholds: Radical notes in women’s writings from contemporary South Asia,’Madhu SinghJPCS Vol 2 No 4, December 201187
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'Crossing Thresholds': Radical Notes in Women's Writings ... - JPCS

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